


Unlikely Places

by babywarg (morphaileffect)



Series: DrPepperony Prompts and Fics [8]
Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, Kamar-Taj (Marvel), Other, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 02:54:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21008537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morphaileffect/pseuds/babywarg
Summary: After Killian is defeated and Tony destroys all his suits, Pepper travels to Nepal, hoping to find someone who could help with Tony's anxiety. Instead she finds trouble, and a man who can both cure physical wounds and open magical portals with a wave of his hand.





	Unlikely Places

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheLadyStrange](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLadyStrange/gifts).

> From a prompt by mistressstrange on Tumblr: "In her search for a way to help Tony, Pepper finds a very unique group of people in Nepal. "
> 
> Pretends Iron Man 3 and the Doctor Strange movie happened at around the same time frame 😺

_Anxiety_, said the therapist she’d had to consult in secret, because Tony reacted badly when she suggested he see a specialist himself. _Panic attacks. Possible PTSD._

She immediately recalled the time Rhodey told her about the “freakout” Tony had at the restaurant (“Please don’t tell him I told you - knowing him, it’ll freak him out more.”) That time she tried to wake Tony from a nightmare, and the Iron Man armor pinned her to the bed, sensing her as a threat.

The time when Tony’s Malibu house was blown up. The final confrontation with Killian, and Extremis.

All those times when Tony couldn’t sleep, and when he slept he had nightmares, even after Extremis had been eliminated.

_Rest_, the therapist said, when Pepper asked what he needed. _Lots of it. And an arsenal of relaxation methods. He should learn how to recognize the signs of anxiety so he can better manage it._

She tried to get him into yoga, visit support groups, meditate…but all of it bored him. Pills were ineffective and made him feel “wonky” besides. He cut his caffeine and alcohol consumption, which helped some, but he also became irritable and depressive.

In short, despite her best efforts, he showed no promising signs of recovering.

She had said they needed a break…she had been hoping she and Tony could take that break together. But he refused, claiming he couldn’t imagine he’d be able to rest if he were taken away from his work.

So she took a week’s leave from work, to try and seek a cure by herself.

Pepper didn’t know exactly what was plaguing the man she loved.

But she was damned if she was going to lose him to it.

***

She heard there was a guru in Kathmandu, a “miracle worker,” who could get even the most tensed-up person in the world relaxed.

She flew into Nepal to meet him herself, and found him a complete and total quack.

So, no guru to bring back to see Tony. With days to spare, she decided to take some time for herself, and see the city.

It was what she did when she was younger, before her busy years in Stark Industries: she would travel, then break off from her tour group and wander alone, taking in the sights and sounds and enjoy just being somewhere different.

It was refreshing. No one knew her there, and no one expected anything of her.

Until she found herself herded by two shady men into a dark alleyway.

She could hold her own, that was true. But the two she thought she had whupped had come back with support, and six against one was simply more than she had trained for.

She was starting to get overwhelmed, when he heard a deep male voice yell for her assailants to stop.

At first it was just one person - a white guy around her age, with a scraggly beard, wearing very plain brown robes and a monk’s hood.

The other was a man in blue robes, but who wore a hood as well. He hung back until the first man cried out:

“Mordo! A little help?”

Then the other man smirked. “Looks like the two of you don’t need any,” he remarked, before unhurriedly jumping into the fray.

Unfortunately, though they were fated to win, given that her two new companions appeared to have above-average martial arts skills, Pepper was already winded by the time they arrived, and could not defend herself well.

One of the assailants had a knife. It tore a mean gash on the inside of Pepper’s forearm.

Unnamed guy noticed it only after all the attackers had been soundly knocked unconscious.

“Mordo,” he breathed, as he inspected the gash, “she’s wounded. She has to come back with us.”

“No,” the man exclaimed, seeming to know exactly what he meant. “Strange!”

Before Pepper’s eyes, a glowing portal appeared out of nowhere.

And the man leapt into it, with his arms around her.

***

Pepper shut her eyes as they entered the portal, and found herself in a sort of monastery.

She would have had more time to observe her surroundings, but she was already being half-dragged down a corridor by the man, who had not released her.

“We have to move quickly. You’re losing a lot of blood.”

She wasn’t sure what the man meant. She wasn’t feeling any pain…

But that was when she realized the man also had his hand on her arm…and that hand was glowing.

_Glowing._

And shaking at the same time, though that was perhaps to be expected, given how bad those old scars on it looked…

Was the glowing what was stopping the pain?

Mordo, who had followed through the portal, was striding behind them. He seemed upset.

“We don’t just let outsiders in the way you did,” he was telling the first guy. “The Ancient One won’t approve of this.”

“I’ll deal with the Ancient One later,” was the level-headed response. “In the meantime, please get the medical supplies from Wong.”

With a final glare, Mordo left to do as he was bid.

Pepper took a bit of time to realize she was being herded by unfamiliar men a lot in this city - was she just taken to a secondary location? Was she unsafe?

But all thoughts of being unsafe fled her mind when the man sat her down on a large, ridiculously comfortable pillow, and raised her entire arm, applying firm pressure both on the wound and on a vein in her upper arm.

This guy knew what he was doing.

“Relax,” he said to her, “I’m a doctor.”

A doctor whose hands could glow and who could defeat armed opponents while completely unarmed himself, and open sparkly portals that could take him from one place to another in a heartbeat?

…Okay.

“You saved me,” she remembered to say through the confusion. “Thank you.”

He looked up into her eyes briefly, and she was stunned.

_What a strange, captivating color…_

“No need for that,” he replied, almost smiling. “But you’re welcome.”

***

As it turned out, she needed the next few days to recover.

Doctor’s orders.

She was in some sort of monastery…forbidden to go to certain areas, which she really wasn’t driven to explore anyway.

She really had lost a lot of blood. The day after the attack, she just wanted to stay in bed, eating the sparse but healthy fare she was given, and enjoying the view.

Her room had a brilliant view.

She had booked a decent suite for her journey, which promised a good vista of the city…but what she was given there was nowhere near as majestic as the one she got in that monastery.

“Lovely. Isn’t it?”

She turned and saw the unnamed man from last night, standing at the doorway with his hands behind his back.

But the man was looking at _her_. Not the view.

She wasn’t creeped out, however. It didn’t feel as if he was checking her out, or radiating any sort of ill intent.

She felt safe and relaxed in this place, in his company.

“I know people who’d pay a pretty penny for a view like this,” she confessed.

“Well, donations are always appreciated,” he disclosed. “But not compulsory in the least.”

“Not even after you saved my life?”

The man snorted. “Please, you could’ve taken them all by yourself.”

It was a joke, she was aware, but a well-meaning one. Which made her smile.

“I honor my debts,” she said, offering her hand for him to shake. “And I’m in your debt, Doctor…”

“Strange.” He took her hand. “But you can call me Stephen.”

***

As Pepper regained her strength, Stephen showed her around the unrestricted parts of the large monastery - which she learned was called Kamar-Taj.

Strangers who didn’t come for religious purposes were uncommon there, but not unwelcome. And she learned she was allowed to stay by their leader, the mysterious and reclusive Ancient One, who was out of grounds at the time and was not available for her to thank personally.

The monks lent her a cell phone for making international calls, and Stephen lent her his laptop so she could tell people about her whereabouts. She sent out a mass email saying she had an “incident” and would be staying a bit longer. She was canceling her flight home, but rebooking.

_When??_ was everyone’s frantic question.

_When? _was Tony’s weary, sleepless, desolate inquiry. _I miss you, Ms. Potts. A hell of a lot._

“As soon as I can, Mr. Stark,” was her immediate reply. “I miss you a hell of a lot, too.”

All through everything, Tony remained foremost on her mind.

As they spent more time together, Stephen came to vaguely explain the magic that they learned in Kamar-Taj - about how they weren’t exactly secret, but weren’t exactly public knowledge, either.

Pepper got his meaning off the bat. She had been around people with superpowers, and understood the need for a measure of secrecy.

He also told her a little about himself. His life in the States. His old practice. His accident. How it might have been the best thing that happened to him, though it still gave him pain, in more ways than one.

(That last part reminded her of Tony as well. The ordeal in the desert, from which he emerged a changed man. The pain from the scarring that he would not - could not - let go of.)

In return, Pepper told Stephen about her boyfriend. The one she’d come to Kathmandu for. The most important person in her life.

And Stephen listened. Patiently. Until she found herself apologizing for talking his ear off.

“Please don’t be sorry,” Stephen said calmly. “Before, I never really appreciated the privilege of hearing someone talk about the things that matter the world to them. Now I do. I can tell you’ve kept all this in for a long time, and I’m honored by your trust.”

She liked him. A lot.

She wished she could take him back with her.

“I think you could do him a world of good, actually,” she thought aloud.

Stephen frowned. “You mean, because he needs a doctor?” It sounded like he was preparing for an argument.

Pepper smiled.

“No,” she assured him. “Because he needs a friend. Someone who may understand what he’s been through. Someone he’ll listen to.”

***

“You _seriously_ think that’ll get me interested?”

“All right, then, enough about being friends. Now I’m asking you to see him as a medical expert.”

“Not that kind of doctor.”

“Just once! What’s the harm?”

She had to use her powers of persuasion to get him to agree to her request to join her on her trip home. It took a few days, too. He was stubborn, almost as stubborn as Tony…

But as with Tony, she could tell he liked her, too. In a way that meant there was a limit to how long he could say “no” to her.

_“Fine,”_ he groaned eventually. “I’ll meet him. Just once. For a _medical_ examination. Then I’m coming back.”

It wasn’t what she wanted, but she was going to take it. She’d convinced him there wasn’t a doctor in the world she trusted as fully as she did him.

Which was, in a way, true.

She’d talked to Tony about him, as well. From their phone conversations, he seemed genuinely interested in Stephen. But of course, that might just have been because he saw Stephen initially as someone who saved Pepper’s life…

But he didn’t take kindly to the notion that he was going to be given a medical examination. He’d avoided seeing specialists all that time - he was doubtful that a “doctor” of vague expertise, _who could do magic,_ could be what he needed.

Pepper sighed. Their first meeting was probably going to be strained. But it was still worth a shot.

On the day they were due to leave, Pepper waited for Stephen at the monastery’s gate. She was surprised to see him for the first time in Western clothing - slacks, a jacket, black shoes, a round-neck shirt.

And with his beard neatly trimmed, into a shape that suited his face well.

Pepper admitted to herself that she possibly, just possibly, had a thing for vain men with meticulously trimmed facial hair.

“Ready to go?” he asked her.

“All set,” she answered. “Got your ticket?” He’d better. It was a pricey ticket. Business class.

He smiled wryly. “Miss Potts…you should get your money back from the airline, before it’s too late for a refund.”

He made a familiar gesture with one hand, and a portal opened in front of them.

On the other side of the portal was Tony’s workshop in upstate New York.

***

Tony was hopped up on caffeine and jumpy when they arrived.

In fairness, a shimmering portal opening out of nowhere was going to make anyone jumpy.

But seeing Pepper cooled his blood instantly. He trapped her in a tight embrace.

“I was so worried,” were his first words to her.

When they broke apart, he cradled her bandaged forearm delicately in his hands, breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that the bandaging was expertly done.

That was only when he paid attention to the other person in the room.

“Dr. Strange, I presume?” Tony looked him up and down.

Stephen stepped forward and offered a trembling hand for Tony to shake.

“Stephen, please,” he said pleasantly.

Tony ignored him and addressed Pepper again.

“So…what, is he staying? Should I fix up one of the spare rooms?”

“No need to bother,” Stephen interrupted, withdrawing his hand. “I won’t be here for long. I’m just here to do what’s necessary, then go back to my training.”

“Oh yeah?” Tony faced him squarely this time. “And what are you training to be, a model for some off-the-rack fashion line for high school librarians?”

Instead of getting puffed up, as Pepper feared, Stephen raised an eyebrow.

“Clearly I’m in the presence of an expert in dressing himself. What’s that, two, three sizes too small?”

They stared each other down. Pepper’s impulse was to intervene, but she was stopped by the fact that she felt no hostility at all between the two men.

Not even a tiny bit.

Presently, Tony started walking past her.

“I like this one,” he said casually, with a casual pat on her shoulder. “Well done, Ms. Potts. I’ll go get his room ready.”

She caught his hand before it slid off his shoulder and he walked past her, out of the workshop.

Stephen watched him go, then sighed. “I gather a medical examination isn’t forthcoming,” he ventured.

“Probably not today,” she answered, smiling. “You could stay the night if you want, or travel back to Kamar-Taj.”

Stephen looked back at the door where Tony had exited.

“I think I’ll stay,” he said pensively.

Something clicked just then. It was going to work out, having Stephen here to check on Tony. Pepper just _knew_.

She’d gone a great distance to find a way to help Tony.

It seemed she’d found exactly what she was looking for.


End file.
